Beginnings and Endings
by MssrTragicandConsumptive
Summary: When the the pieces of your life fall apart, you are left with a half finished puzzle and a broken heart. Remus/Sirius Wolfstar


_People don't often think of the beginning. The start isn't important, just how it ends. The thing is, the beginning is important. Without a start there is nothing. Without a start the story can't begin. When you ask them how _we_ got started, not many people could answer the question. It's always the same. 'They were always together.' I remember though. I remember the day, the minute, the very second everything happen. Like a fire, sparking in the dry heat and going to rage over an entire forest. We were a disaster waiting to happen. We were destruction at it's finest. From the second Sirius Black threw his pumpkin juice on me at the Sorting Feast I knew my life was going to change forever. Not how, but I knew. Honestly, I didn't know then that destruction could be so beautiful and that from the ashes of a burning forest of closed in emotions the most beautiful work of art would blossom. Love isn't always something glorious, but it wouldn't be nearly as wonderful if it was any different. _

Rain tends to fall when you want it least. Everyone says rain never falls when you are sad because that only happens in movies. Life isn't like a movie. It isn't fair, it rarely has a happy ending, and the rain falls when it wants to. The question is why the rain decided to make a perfect movie moment on today of all days. Of all times for life to feel like something from a story, something that looked real but wasn't at all, why did it have to be now? Why did it have to be when the world had suddenly gone black? Black like the clothes everyone wore. Black like the roses hung around the chairs and tables. Black like the empty coffin he was standing before.

Remus raised a hand to touch the smooth, black paint on wood. It was cold and horrible. He couldn't imagine putting a body in something like that, even if they had something to bury. There was something about how he could feel all the eyes on him. They never lingered, but they stayed just long enough to make him feel uncomfortable.

That was when the sky opened up. Just like in a movie, with all the mourners crying into sopping hankies, the rain fell. It was cold, thick and silent. Little rivulets of water slid down into the coffin's satin lining and soaked Remus' gray streaked hair to his face. Remus pulled one of two chains from his collar. He pulled it off and dropped a single silver band into the empty coffin, closing the lid and setting a hand on the wet surface. He closed his eyes and tipped his face to the sky.

No one could see the tears that worked down his scarred cheeks and fell like the rain onto his robes. Somewhere, deep inside, he knew that his world had just come to a crashing halt. He was cold and hollow. Just like the empty coffin.

_There is something funny about falling in love. You always think you will know exactly when it happens. It isn't like that at all. It sneaks up on you and then tears you apart slowly. When I fell in love with Sirius Black it was like the world fell into place. It was almost audible, the click it made when I understood that the reason my heart sped up when he looked at me was special. I remember the first time he held my hand. My fingers and his were like a puzzle. The fit together and made a whole. A perfect picture. No matter how James teased us, we knew. That is another thing about love. You always know when it is right, when it clicks. It might take a while, but when it does you don't have to think twice. _

Summer wasn't the same when it blew in, hot and strong. The grass turned yellow under the baking golden sun and the world smelled dry and sweet. Remus looked around at the familiar sights of Devonshire. He had spent so many summers here as a boy. He hadn't come here once while Sirius was in Azkaban because of how it hurt him, but now that he was gone the only thing that gripped Remus' heart was wistful nostalgia. The sights hadn't changed terribly as he walked the road that lead to what had been the potter's house.

It had been on this very stretch of land that Sirius had danced with him in a freak thunder storm shortly after they had gotten together. He looked at the old dirt path under his feet, and then at the sky. No rain today. The expanse above was blue and clear. Remus looked ahead.

This had been a safe house once. To all of them. Remus reached the old gate and looked at the ruins of the Potters' house. It had been uninhabited since James' parents had been killed in the sitting room by Voldemort. No one would buy it, saying it was haunted.

The yellow paint had faded to a dull yellow gray, peeling away from the paneling. The windows were broken and glittering shards lay in the unkempt, very dead grass. Remus reached for the latch and pushed open the gate. He walked down the broken concrete and took the two little steps to the faded front door.

In the concrete, scratched in with something sharp, was a little heart with a "J+L" inside it. Beside this was a scratched in pawprint. Remus looked down at it and smiled softly. James and Sirius had done that during the spring break of third year. Mr. Potter had gotten rather upset about the vandalizing of his new porch. He turned to face the old brass knocker of the house.

This was the house where James and Sirius had grown up, and where Sirius and Remus had openly come out as a couple. There so many memories here, behind this faded door. Memories of three children who came to adulthood together through many trials and errors lingering in the peeling paint. The only thing that haunted this place now were the good times three unfortunate souls would never get to build on.

Remus sank down onto the front steps and touched the carving of the pawprint. He laid his hand flat against it, breathing slowly. The concrete under his fingers was hot and rough. His looked at his hand and imagined it, fitted against Sirius'.

"I'm a half of a whole..." He whispered, closing his golden eyes. He was an unfinished puzzle, once a beautiful picture, and now just a jumble of half matched pieces.

_People don't really ever think about endings. It is a human curse, or even a half-human curse. People live in the moment. They don't want to think that someday it will all be over. Someday you will stop being whole. People don't think that they might loose everything. One morning they are happier than they have ever been, and then it slips away the next. That is why it is a fire. Love is destructively powerful, and just as it tears through your world brilliant and stunning, it can be so devastating. What do you do when the fire is put out? What do you do when what lit your life is snuffed forever? I suppose you keep going. You move on. You never find that fire again. You life becomes very quiet and you move along with it. Cleaning up the ashes and eventually finding the ground underneath. Something sturdy to stand on. One day I will move forward and some semblance of what I had before might trickle back, but it is impossible to mend a broken heart. I loved him. I will always love him. _

_ Sirius Black was my fire._

_ He made me whole_

_ He lit my life._

_ And he burned it down._

_ And I don't regret a minute of it._

_ And I never will._


End file.
